Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
A story of two coalitions – ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) – whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time.
How to Survive a Plague is a gripping and essential documentary that reconstructs the ACT UP and TAG activism of the late 1980s and early 1990s through remarkable archival footage. Its plot — the transformation of dying patients into empowered scientific advocates — is genuinely extraordinary and told with urgent, propulsive momentum, earning a top mark. The ending, which reveals what became of key figures and the staggering human cost alongside the movement's eventual triumph, lands with devastating emotional force. The cinematography is competent but unremarkable for the documentary form, relying heavily on archival material rather than distinctive visual construction. Acting is not applicable in the traditional sense, but the documentary subjects are compelling and vivid presences. Novelty is solid — the film covers an underrepresented chapter of history with care — but it doesn't radically reinvent documentary form.